Spotsylvania Preschool Classrooms Placed on State Honor Roll for Excellence in Early Childhood Education
Preschool classrooms at Berkeley and Brock Road elementary schools honored for excellence; classroom at Salem honored for improvement.
By Adele Uphaus
MANAGING EDITOR AND CORRESPONDENT
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The 3-year-olds working on puzzles around the low table in Christie Trotta and Suzanne Bush’s early childhood special education classroom at Brock Road Elementary School probably didn’t understand why adults bearing bouquets of flowers and snapping pictures swarmed in on Friday morning.
And it probably meant little to them when the adults told Trotta and Bush that their classroom—along with one at Berkeley Elementary School—had been placed on the Virginia Department of Education’s 2024-25 Honor Roll for excellence in preschool education.
What the students probably do understand is that when they come to class every day, their teachers interact with them in a one-to-one, language-rich, developmentally appropriate way—and that’s what all the fuss was about on Friday.
The Honor Roll is an initiative of the VDOE’s Virginia Quality Birth to 5 (VBQ5) system, a tool established by state law in 2020 to measure and help improve the quality of all publicly-funded birth-to-five classrooms.
“This is the first time VQB5 is offering the Honor Roll and very few programs within our region got the honor,” said Jennifer Turner, Spotsylvania County’s executive director of elementary schools. “We’re really excited for our schools.”
In addition to Brock Road and Berkeley being awarded for excellence—and being considered “national exemplars for preschool education”—Salem Elementary’s Virginia Preschool Initiative classroom was placed on the VQB5 Honor Roll for improvement.
The Berkeley and Brock Road programs are among just 11 programs in Ready Region North Central— which includes the Fredericksburg area as well as Loudoun, Fauquier, Prince William, Culpeper, and Manassas counties—to be placed on the Honor Roll for excellence.
One Fauquier program, three Loudoun programs, one Prince William program, and four private preschool programs also made the Honor Roll for excellence.
The VQB5 system assigns a score out of 800 total points for each preschool site, based on its use of approved curriculum and on three classroom observations, during which observers look at the frequency and quality of interactions between students and teachers.
Christine McCurley, preschool coordinator for Spotsylvania County Public Schools, said is very difficult for classrooms to score well under the new metric.
“It’s a very rigorous tool because we are trying to build the sills of 3- and 4-year-olds,” she said. “All of our students are learning language, sometimes learning the English language. So the interactions really have to do with providing those language opportunities. [Teachers are encouraging] interactions between students as well as with adults in the classroom.”
The average statewide score for public school preschool programs under the VQB5 system was 628. Across all 3,293 preschool sites, the average score was 592 points.
Brock Road received a score of 708 and Berkeley, 705.
The preschool team at these sites is made up of veteran teachers, McCurley said—Trotta said she has been in early childhood education for 27 years, for example.
“The only classroom that has a teacher new to preschool is at Salem,” McCurley said. “She is in her second year and she improved the interaction score from the previous school year by 100 points. She is just an incredibly strong teacher.”
Turner and McCurley said the division’s high scores reflect an investment in professional learning about the VQB5 system and consistent practice.
Teachers were encouraged to pick one area they wanted to improve on, versus trying to tackle everything at once, and to praise their colleagues when they noticed them improving in their chosen area.
“It’s about working as team and being intentional to ensure you are meeting that goal you set for yourself,” McCurley said.
And when teachers are meeting these goals, as they are in Spotsylvania, the students are getting their best chance to build a strong foundation for future learning.
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